May 30, 2013 - Gripped Magazine

If you think that set up for an IFSC comps are a higher-level version of what may be available at your local gym, think again. Competition setting has very different and specific goals than training routes and circuits in a commercial gym.

Paumgarten depicts a battle between the unromantic, slick professionalism of Steck, who he tracks through his training and his carefully maintained professional reputation in Switzerland, and commercial climbing, also a non-Nepali invention.

“Without any climbing history at the Olympics, going to the Games is just another road trip. Sometimes, despite the best of plans, it rains, and you have to spend a few days cooling your heels in the coffee shop.”